Manet, Meissonier and Room M

From 1863 to 1874, Room M, the infamous gallery in the annual, government-sponsored Paris Salon (the Exhibition of Living Artists ), was a testing ground. It saw many a melee, showcasing (alphabetically) the dramatically opposed works of celebrated conservative painter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier and reviled upstart Edouard Manet, father of the Impressionists. This juxtaposition of...

Building an architectural wonder The reality of the past always stands out in stark contrast to our fuzzy mental pictures. Ross King's account of the building of Brunelleschi's Dome, the gargantuan centerpiece of renaissance Florence's Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, is both a portrait of a driven man and the age in which he lived. We tend to admire the beauty of wonders such as the dome...